


Drunk and Sad

by conceptstage



Series: Critical Fiction [7]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Because i'm still in denial, Mention of Canonical Major Character Death, Molly comes back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-06-27 07:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15681228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptstage/pseuds/conceptstage
Summary: Beau disappears one morning and returns just when her friends start freaking out with a new addition.*Now with a part 2*





	1. Chapter 1

Fjord was enjoying his coffee, still trying to get over the pounding headache that had plagued him since they woke up in the dungeon three nights ago, slaves no more. Caleb sat across from him, reading his latest book acquisition. It was in celestial this time, he was very excited. Clay sat at the end of the table sipping his tea and staring at Fjords mug of coffee like it had personally offended him.

“That’s smells revolting,” he said. Fjord waved at him tiredly but didn’t respond.

Nott piped up from her place next to Caleb. “So you’re a tea snob?”

“If that means I believe tea to be the superior beverage… then yes.”

Nott nodded. “Yes, that’s what it means.”

Jester and Beau were still sleeping it seemed. The tavern they were having breakfast in was empty except for them and the snoring waiter behind the bar. Caleb glanced at him and sighed, realizing that his eggs were probably going to be cold by the time they reached the table and beginning to resign himself to that fact.

Jester came down the stairs with a yawn and a stretch. She paused as she approached the table and started glancing around the room. “Where’s Beau?” she asked.

Nott blinked in surprise. “She’s still up in your room. She hasn’t come down.”

“She never came to the room last night after I went up. I assumed she got drunk again and passed out in one of your rooms.”

“Well, who saw he last?”

Clay cleared his throat. “I believe I did. You had all gone up to sleep and it was just the two of us. We chatted for a few minutes and then I went to bed as well. She said she was going to drink some more and that she would go to bed soon.”

Everyone started looking around, feeling the panic beginning to creep in with the frigid morning air. Fjord hopped up and ran over to the waiter, banging his hand hard on the counter to wake him. The man snorted and shook his head but his eyes opened. He sneered and wiped the drool from his chin.

“I’ll get you your food, be patient.”

“Did you see our friend last night? The angry one with the undercut and the black eye?” he asked frantically.

“Oh yeah, I saw her. She was hot.”

Fjord rolled his eyes and grunted impatiently. “Did you see where she went?”

“Yeah, she wandered out of here around two in the morning.”

“Outside? Alone?”

Jester grabbed onto Fjord’s shirt and started pulling him towards the door. “We should all go look for her. Let’s split up. Fjord and I will go to the south end of town, Caleb and Clay you go north. Nott, you should stay here in case she comes…”

She was cut off when the door opened. They all looked up to see their resident angry monk wander it, her eyes red rimmed and drooping.

“Beau!” Nott exclaimed. “Where did you go? We were so worried about you!”

She sniffed and wiped at her face. “Nowhere, don’t worry about it.” He voice sounded raw, like she had been screaming or crying.

“We were very worried,” Caleb said, completely monotone. An observer might have thought he was lying but his friends knew it was sincere, if a little stilted. 

“Well, I’m obviously fine. We all awake? Ready to hit the road?”

“No, Beau, you should sleep.”

“I’m fine, I’ve gone more than one night without sleep before. This is nothing, you should have seen me in my hunger strike days.”

Jester stepped up and took Beau’s hand, gripping the loose hanging limb tightly. “Beau,” she said seriously. “Please, tell us where you went. I was so worried when I came down and found out no one had seen you. I thought for a second you had been taken.”

Beau’s obstinate eyes softened and she sighed heavily. “I was really drunk, okay. And really sad. I started thinking about Molly dying and Yasha leaving and almost losing you guys forever… I don’t know. I went and did what drunk sad people do. I got a tattoo.”

No one spoke for a moment until finally Nott found the bravery to ask what they were all thinking. “Is it a naked lady tattoo? And is it in a place you can show it to us?”

Beau rolled her eyes and cracked a smile. “It’s not a naked lady. And it's on my shoulder, I was sad drunk, not horny drunk. And I can’t show it to you because it’s healing and it looks red and gross. I’ll show you when it’s better.”

Jester nodded and continued holding her friend’s hand as they all headed out of the tavern. “Well, so long as I get to see it first on account of I’m your best and closest friend.”

“Of course, Jester,” Beau mumbled tiredly, letting herself be tugged along.

 

It was two weeks before anyone saw the tattoo. Much to her disappointment, Jester was not the first to see it, Caleb was. And much to Nott’s disappointment, Beau didn’t have Keg’s naked body permanently drawn on her skin, she just thought that would have been really funny.

They were fighting a group of bandits who had ambushed them on the road. Caleb was focused on the leader, a hulking half-orc the size of two Fjords, and didn’t notice a half-elf rogue creeping up behind him. He only turned around when Beau threw herself against him, pressing her front to his back to block the dagger that had been aimed at his heart.

She cried out in pain when it pierced her shoulder and then spun around the whack his assailant in the head. Caleb turned around completely, to thank her, to apologize maybe, he wasn’t sure. And he saw it. The dagger had hit right beside it and when she turned it had sliced through her shirt, exposing her dark, toned back and the tattoo.

It was a purple peacock skull with two scimitars crossed behind it like crossbones with the words ‘Long may he reign’ written elegantly beneath it.

“Beau…” he mumbled, hearing the ends of the fight behind him as the leader died from a lollipop to the gonads.

She wouldn’t look in his eyes and grasped at her shirt to pull it up and cover it. “I was drunk and sad and thinking about what he taught me. It just seemed… right.”

“I… I like it,” he said, his voice pinched.

“Well, I don’t care if you like it,” she said, unconvincingly. “It’s not for you, it’s for me, to remind me to leave everything better than how I found it.”

“Yeah. Okay. Would you like me to fix your shirt?”

She just nodded and allowed Caleb to cast mending before they both returned to the group.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly's back and sees Beau's tattoo for the first time in the worst possible circumstances.

Even Jester couldn’t bring herself to smile tonight. She kept looking over at the broken body of her dear friend and feeling tears well up in her eyes before looking away sharply. Beau was laid near the fire to keep her warm and on top of Caleb’s coat to keep her off the ground. It was probably soaked in her blood at this point, she had lost so much. It was perhaps the most peaceful any of them had ever seen her.

Everyone looked up when Nott suddenly gasped. “Oh,” the goblin said, relaxing. “I thought… I was watching and I thought she had stopped breathing.”

They all turned to stare at the slow rise and fall of her chest, not letting their eyes drift to the torn remains of her shirt and the drying blood on her skin. “It’s about time to change her bandages,” Molly said, standing up. He started with her stomach first, gently cleaning away the blood and rewrapping them with torn strips from the shirts they’d taken from the dead assholes who had done this to her. It wasn’t perfect, but the bandages from their medical kits were gone and the nearest town was days away.

He heard everyone start moving around behind him, preparing to sleep. They had stopped taking watch after Caleb learned to use the tiny hut, but they had agreed to take turns all night watching her to make sure she made it through the night. Jester and Caduceus would be able to heal her when they woke up. She just had to make it until then. “I’ll take first watch,” he called. Everyone was too drained to reply, there were just a few grunts of acknowledgement. 

The only person who spoke before they all disappeared inside the hut was Jester, who came over and kissed her best friend’s bruised cheek. “Watch out for her,” Jester said, not looking at him. He nodded but she continued. “She watches out for us all the time. Putting herself in danger, ending up… ending up like this.” There were tears in her eyes again but she seemed determined not to let them fall. “We need to take better care of her from now on.” Then she turned to walk into the hut. “Come wake me in four hours. I’ll take next watch.”

He finished cleaning the wounds on her front and gently turned her over to her back. There were claw shaped tears in her shirt and he could see the soaked bandages through the holes. He lifted up the back of her crop top just enough to remove the old bandages and began wiping down her skin. As he cleaned the wound, he noticed some color up higher on her shoulder blade.

“A tattoo,” he muttered, grinning slightly. “Beauregard, you rebel.” He kind of expected a half hearted middle finger but she didn’t move. He sighed heavily and started wiping the blood from around the tattoo. As the ink became more legible he was able to figure out what it was. A purple peacock skull with two scimitars crossed behind the skull like crossbones. “Long may he reign,” he read aloud from the text below the skull. “Oh, you softy,” he teased, beginning to rebandage her claw marks. “You missed me. I am absolutely holding this over your head when you wake up.”  _ If _ she woke up, but Molly didn’t want to say that thought out loud.

He sighed again. He was doing that a lot tonight. They could lose Beau any second and it weighed on him like bricks. “Don’t die,” he whispered, rolling her onto her back and then covering his face with his hands. “If you die, then I’ll have to get a tattoo for you too, and I don’t want to do that. You’re an asshole, I have no idea what kind of tattoo I would design for you, but it would doubtlessly be tacky and crude. A middle finger maybe. Your middle finger, with the words ‘Fuck you’ in big red letters. To remind me to be more like you and not to let the world take what it wants from me. I hate it already. If you make me get that tattoo I will kill you, so don’t die.”

Beau shifted slightly in her sleep, groaning in pain but her breathing sounded stronger than it had in hours. He laughed and shook his head. “I hate you. Now, you’re gonna get better? Now, after I just said all that embarrassing stuff. I really hate you.” He really didn’t.


End file.
